Winemaker Notes
Professional Ratings
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
Beginning in 2016, a small percentage of fruit for this cuvée comes from young vines, newly planted in the Sisters vineyard; the majority (92%) comes from 51-year-old vines in the original Eyrie vineyard. The 2016 Estate Chardonnay has delicate aromas of tangerine and orange peel with notes of chamomile flowers, honey and hay. Light to medium-bodied with a touch of creaminess to the texture, it fills the mouth with lively tangy citrus flavors and a wicked streak of crushed rock minerality, with mouthwatering, juicy acidity, finishing long and textured with honey flavors coming through.
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Wine Spectator
Expressive and zesty, with medium-bodied pear and tangerine flavors accented by spice and clotted cream notes.
One of the most popular and versatile white wine grapes, Chardonnay offers a wide range of flavors and styles depending on where it is grown and how it is made. While it tends to flourish in most environments, Chardonnay from its Burgundian homeland produces some of the most remarkable and longest lived examples. California produces both oaky, buttery styles and leaner, European-inspired wines. Somm Secret—The Burgundian subregion of Chablis, while typically using older oak barrels, produces a bright style similar to the unoaked style. Anyone who doesn't like oaky Chardonnay would likely enjoy Chablis.
Home of the first Pinot noir vineyard of the Willamette Valley, planted by David Lett of Eyrie Vineyard in 1966, today the Dundee Hills AVA remains the most densely planted AVA in the valley (and state). To its north sits the Chehalem Valley and to its south, runs the Willamette River. Within the region’s 12,500 acres, about 1,700 are planted to vine on predominantly basalt-based, volcanic, Jory soil.